


three words that became hard to say

by thesilverwitch



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-10
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-25 22:22:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6212425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesilverwitch/pseuds/thesilverwitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s four when he learns how to read. By then he already knows about soulmates.</p><p>(Set in a universe where everyone has their soulmate's name written on their arm, but it's not visible to the world until they touch.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote 90% of this chapter while running a 40C fever so apologies for any weirdness. also shout out to my babe nea for the beta help!

you’re trying not to tell him you love him, and you’re trying to choke down the feeling, and you’re trembling,  but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you don’t even have a name for.

\- richard siken

 

He’s four when he learns how to read. By then he already knows about soulmates.

It is impossible not to when they’re just about everywhere. In all the movies and television shows, in the books Toni’s parents read to him before bedtime, in the news and walking down the street — people whose wrists are covered with ink swirls Toni can’t yet decipher, their soulmate’s name.

Everyone has them, his parents tell him, including you, but only you can see their name until you meet them in person and touch their skin. Then the words on your wrist will be visible to the world and everyone will know how loved and cherished you are.

Toni stares at his wrist. He can see the words, but he doesn’t know what they mean and when he tries to draw them, all that comes out are a bunch of indecipherable squiggles. His parents laugh and tell him it’s okay, he’s too young to meet his soulmate anyway. Most people find them in their late teenage years or early twenties.

His parents have each other’s names on their wrists, but Toni soon figures out that’s not the case for everyone.

When he starts to learn the alphabet, he sees an old couple walking hand in hand. The woman has a bracelet covering the words on her right wrist and the man is ink-free. Toni asks his mother what’s wrong with them, loudly, and is dragged away by his blushing mother, who kneels down to his height to explain that not everyone was with their soulmate.

The thought, at the time, seems ludicrous. Why would anyone want to be with someone who wasn’t their soulmate, when their soulmate was meant to be everything? Their better half, their world, moon and sun. Toni is three and he does not understand love, but he’s seen enough Disney movies to know how the story should unfold.

His mother tells him that while technology improved by the day and it was easier now more than ever to find your soulmate, that didn’t mean everyone got the chance. Sometimes your soulmate died before you met them. Other times they lived across the world. Sometimes you just didn’t meet, for whatever reason, like Fate had gotten bored and decided to switch the rules to the game for sick amusement. There were soulmate databases, worldwide connection points, but they weren’t perfect and some people didn’t want to be on them anyway.

Not everyone believed in soulmates, his mother said.

Toni, nothing but a baby, pink-faced and chubby all around, asked why in perfect innocence.

He’d never forget the smile his mother gave him, happy and sad all at once. She said, “Because love isn’t always easy.”

And Toni didn't get it, he was too young, but he’d get it soon enough.

: :

His words say _Francisco Román Alarcón Suárez_ and even at the age of four, Toni knows there is something wrong.

: :

He tells his parents. He can’t _not_ tell his parents.

His mother gasps when she hears his butchered pronunciation of the words and then she asks him to write them down on the off-chance that he’s got it wrong, that he really can’t pronounce the name on his wrist, but in the end there is nothing left in the darkness when the name on your wrist is _Francisco_.

His father shakes his head as he runs a hand through his greasy hair. “This doesn’t have to mean anything,” he says. Toni stares, unsure of what any of it means.

He’s four and all he’s ever heard about soulmates is that they represent love. They represent hope. They represent happiness.

“It doesn’t have to be like that. There’s plenty of people who never meet their soulmates. Plenty of love to go around,” his mother tells him.

“But why?” Toni asks.

“Because two men— you can’t be together. It’s not right, honey.” His mother bites her bottom lip, tears threatening to slip down her cheeks until the soft corners of her chin catch them.

“It doesn’t have to mean anything,” his father repeats. He’s a striking man, especially when he pushes himself to his full height, which he does now as he gets up from the couch and strides towards his son. Toni has never cowered from his dad, not once. “You’ll find someone else.” His father picks him up from the floor and looks into Toni’s eyes like he’s searching for something.

“Does this mean I don’t have a soulmate?” Toni asks and his parents — his parents love him, would do anything for him, would fight wars and bleed on desolated streets for him, his parents love him with everything in them, but they, too, are young and scared and Greifswald is not the most accepting place, not in 1994 anyway.

“Yes,” his mother says. She is crying now, big fat dollops that stream like rivers down her face. “It does.”

And that is how Toni learns that soulmates don’t have to mean anything after all.

: :

You’re not supposed to tell other people the name of your soulmate, but some of Toni’s classmates ask anyway and he has to shake his head and whisper, “That’s private,” before he turns around and leaves.

It’s around this time that Toni starts playing football. He joins Greifswalder SV when he’s seven and Hansa Rostock when he’s twelve.

All of his teammates, regardless of which team he’s referring to, talk about the same things in the locker room. Soulmates is a hot topic, but it’s not all that recurring. Mostly they talk about girls and cars and playing for the seniors teams. Toni doesn’t join in often. Even without the name on his wrist he wouldn’t be able to talk about girls like that. He tries a couple of times, but the words always get stuck in his throat like these massive hiccups that refuse to come out.

His teammates don’t think much of it. They believe he’s a private person;  _reserved_ is the word he hears a couple of times. It’s close enough to the truth that Toni doesn’t even feel bad about furthering that image.

During all this time, he doesn’t think about the name on his wrist. He doesn’t say it out loud or imagine what his soulmate is like. He doesn’t dream about him or wonder what he's doing at that precise moment, where he is and who he is with. He doesn’t imagine meeting him, doesn’t conjure a hundred different scenarios in his head. He doesn’t because doing so would be wrong. It would kill his career to have a man’s name on his wrist, visible for the world to see, and they could never be together, no matter how much they both wanted it.

Not that Toni wanted it. Not at all.

: :

He tries to date a girl when he’s fifteen.

She’s strawberry blonde and sweet to the core, with a wide smile and penchant for summer dresses. They go to the same school and all of Toni’s friends think she’s hot, but it’s Toni she says _yes_ to when he asks her out.

He takes her on three dates and only admits things aren’t working when they have their first kiss and Toni spends the whole time thinking about how her tongue feels like a cold alien probe inside his mouth.

The whole experience is so awkward he later erases it entirely from his mind.

: :

He sees a couple— a _gay_ couple—walking down the street, hand in hand, when he’s sixteen.

Without wanting to stare, Toni catches a glimpse of one of the man’s wrists and sees that it says, in neat cursive, _Hans_.

As silly as it might sound, the sight breaks the dam inside his brain that had always stopped him from seeing the bigger picture. Suddenly, the world doesn’t feel quite so small and Toni isn’t so hopeless.

Then Bayern Munich come calling, making lots of promises, _big_ promises, about a golden future for Toni, Champions League, a spot on the national team and everything else kids everywhere dream about.

And since everyone knows football players aren’t gay, whatever dam Toni had been dreaming of closes again.

: :

He dates more girls. Never for too long, never going far enough to commit, just enough to like them and then to say goodbye.

The whole thing doesn’t feel right and it’s not only because they’re not his soulmate.

: :

As dramatic as it might sound, the internet changes the world.

Old paper databases, limited by geography and access to physical material, are substituted by online archives that can—and do—connect the whole world.

Suddenly, you can talk to anyone regardless of whether they’re in the same town as you or on the other side of the world. Social networks are created. Everyone is online and available and just _there_.

You can find anyone if you just look.

For the longest time, Toni doesn’t look.

: :

(His soulmate has got to be someone outgoing. Someone who pushes Toni out of his comfort zone, but at the same time understands Toni isn’t and will never be a massively social person. It’d have to be someone who could make him laugh and who understands his sense of humor. Someone fun to be around.

If he’s anything like Toni’s type, then he would have black hair, dark eyes and a gorgeous smile. He would have a nice body, but he wouldn’t be too sculpted. He’d be approachable, someone Toni could talk to. It’d be nice if he was in the football business, because then he'd get it — get that there will always be the long hours, long flights and long distance calls and that’s just the way it is.

They would meet in the street, just bump into each other one day as they're going on their way, maybe to the grocery store, maybe to the movies. Or they would meet while jogging, in the early morning, as the sun hitches its way up the sky. They would meet at a bar. They would meet on the pitch. They would meet during a thunderstorm or underneath a clear, starry sky. Their hands would touch and their breaths would hold and it would be everything. A rush of endorphins, a sudden fall and the promise of a lifetime.

His soulmate would love him. That is the most important fact. He wouldn't be ashamed of Toni, would never try to hide him or pretend his feelings weren't real. His soulmate would cherish him the way soulmates are supposed to. He would want to be with Toni, to kiss good morning and hug him good night. He'd want everything and Toni would want to give him exactly so.

It takes a long time for Toni to accept that this is what he wants, but once he does, the idea sticks to him until his last breath.)

: :

He finds him when he’s twenty.

He’d tried to find him many times before, but up until then all of his Google searches had proved fruitless. As it turns out, having a name as long as Francisco Román Alarcón Suaréz isn’t a guarantee of being easy to find.

Toni never gives up hope. He couldn’t, not when hope seems to be all he’s made of some days, like he’s rag doll sewn with golden seams and a glittering world. He does well in believing, because eventually his soulmate’s name comes up and the second Toni sees a video of him twirling past a line of defenders like they're nothing and scoring one of the most beautiful goals he has ever seen, Toni knows it’s him. He knows it the same way he knows how to breathe or how to make a perfect pass to a teammate on the other side of the field — instinctually and purely, without leaving room for discussion. 

He goes by the name _Isco_ and he's shorter than Toni by ten centimeters. His hair is pure black and his eyes dark brown and he's quite possibly the most attractive man Toni has ever seen. He's Spanish, which explains his foreign name, and he plays for Málaga. There are 2359 kilometers between them and a world of prejudice. Toni _wants_ so badly that it makes his chest ache and he’s not even sure what exactly he wants, if it's meeting Isco or being with him or just so much as playing with him.

Toni immediately considers moving to Málaga, but everyone he talks to says it's career suicide to go from Bayern Munich to a mid-table Spanish team, so Toni decides maybe it's better to wait, see how everything goes.

It's not like Toni would even know what to do if they met. He wants to think he'd be brave but— who knows.

: :

He watches a lot of videos of Isco, and he means _a lot_ of videos. He watches all of Malaga's matches, preferably live, but when he can’t fit them in his schedule he records them for later. He watches all of Isco's interviews, buys a Spanish-German dictionary, then watches his interviews again. He even takes _notes_.

His libido goes up by tenfold and he jerks off thinking about Isco's lips, his hands and his body. It's wrong, he knows it is, but it's so different to imagine a hypothetical soulmate and to know exactly what they look like, how their face lights up when they smile, how their hands are long and thin and just perfect—everything about him is just perfect.

Toni doesn’t know if it’s the bond between them talking or if he just developed a gigantic crush on his own. There’s not a lot of information out there on soulmates who find each other through the internet and then don’t even attempt to meet.

He likes to think that it has nothing to do with the bond. That whatever he’s feeling is his and his alone.

In a world where your fate is decided for you before you’re even born, it is a comforting thought.

: :

Occasionally, Toni researches his own name, curious to see what he’ll find, and each time he finds his own face as the first result. His face, his name and his story.

He wonders if Isco has done the same. If he’s Googled Toni and thought ‘this is him’ or if he shook his head and thought it would be someone else. He wonders if Isco likes him, if he finds him attractive at all. He wonders if Isco is even into men.

There are cases of people having same-sex names on their wrists and claiming to be straight and that their bond is just platonic. Although, looking back, Toni wonders how many of those were pretending so that society would accept them.

Toni wonders, and he wonders, and he wonders.

: :

Isco transfers to Real Madrid.

An explosion goes off inside Toni’s brain. Everything in him says _go, follow him, go._ Toni wants to throw everything in the air and do exactly that. It’s the sign he had waited for all his life, but his agent tells him to wait some more, to be patient. He says, “Big things are ahead of you,” and, “Wait until the World Cup. You’ll get a much bigger offer if Germany does well.” 

The hunger inside Toni says to hell with waiting— _to hell with the World Cup_ —but the logical side of him fights against making a rash decision. In the end, he makes the call over dinner with his brother.

“Did mom and dad ever tell you about the name on my wrist?” Toni asks halfway through the meal, as casual as can be.

Felix pauses mid-bite. “No, of course not. Why?”

Toni nods to himself. Of course his parents would never tell. Not to Felix or anyone else. To them the name on Toni’s wrist was a secret they’d take to the grave.

“Well, I found the person who it belongs to.”

Felix chokes on the piece of chicken that had just started going down his throat. “That’s great,” he says between a few choked coughs. “Who’s the lucky lady?”

Toni bites his bottom lip.

He hasn’t shared his soulmate’s name with someone else since he was four. He’s said it a couple of times while he was on his own, usually during more unsavory moments. 

The word is huge on his tongue, blocky and hard to digest. Toni tries to roll it on his tongue as he takes a deep breath.

He can do this. It’s just his soulmate’s name and it’s Felix, his brother, the only person in the universe who could never judge him. Another deep breath.

“Or is it a lucky guy?” Felix asks, quietly, looking at Toni with a kind smile. 

Toni gasps although he’s not even sure why he’s surprised. His brother has always been the sharper of the two.

“Yeah,” Toni whispers. “His name is Isco.”

“Isco? Like the Spanish player?”

“I think it is _the_ Spanish player.” Toni takes a long sip of water. His mouth has never felt drier. “The name matches and I can feel it— that it’s him.”

“Oh, wow.” Felix stares at Toni in silence for a couple of seconds before a huge grin breaks across his face. “Wow, that is amazing. Didn’t he just transfer to Real Madrid?”

“Yeah,” Toni says. His shoulders drop and an answering grin blooms across his face. It is stupid to be proud of Isco when Toni has never done anything for him, but he feels proud nonetheless to actually be able to say _my soulmate plays for Real Madrid._

“Of course your soulmate would be a super talented football player that has just signed up for one of the biggest clubs in the world. _Of course_ ,” Felix laughs, sounding stupidly delighted. “Oh and he’s good-looking too,” he adds, which is when Toni notices the phone in his brother’s hand. He moves to snatch it up, but Felix just laughs and moves it out of the way. “Is he your type? I bet it is.”

“I don’t have a type.”

“Everyone has a type. I like short girls with pixie cuts.”

Toni rolls his eyes. “Thank you for sharing.”

“No problem.” Felix puts his phone away and goes back to grinning at Toni, who grins back without even thinking.

“There’s something else,” Toni adds, looking down at his plate.

Felix waits. When Toni doesn’t elaborate, he nudges him underneath the table. “Talk. I am your emotional counsellor for the night.”

Toni ignores the comment. “There is an option for me to join Real Madrid next season.”

Felix, who had not looked all that shocked to hear his brother was gay, looks positively flummoxed now. “Seriously? For how much?”

Ah. Well. “Six million. My agent thinks it’s a shit deal,” he confessed.

“Well, it’s certainly not doing you any favors. But knowing you, you don’t want to wait until the World Cup, do you?” Toni sips his water. Felix laughs. “I won’t tell you what to do, but I will say this: you’ve already waited twenty-three years. Waiting another year won’t kill you.”

“It might.”

Felix kicks him underneath the table again. “Blue balls isn’t a real cause of death,” he says, and that’s when Toni determines the conversation to be over.

His brother and his agent and just about everyone, really, are right. It’s better to wait.

Toni can do it. He’ll wait until the World Cup is over and then he’ll go.

: :

Winning, it must be said, feels _amazing_.

: :

Real Madrid offers him thirty million and a permanent spot on the starting eleven.

Toni says _yes_ so quickly he almost bites his tongue.

: :

A week before Toni arrives in Madrid, Isco Alarcón is seen walking down the street with a black leather bracelet covering his left wrist. The pictures are online within hours, soon followed by pages of speculation on the obtrusive accessory.

It’s not rare for a celebrity to hide their soulmate by covering their wrists, but it’s not common either. Usually, the only people who do it are the ones who have parted ways with their soulmates or people with something big to hide.

Toni has no idea what to think of the whole thing.

He knows it’s because of him. It’s too unlikely to be a coincidence. And he knows it can’t mean anything good. No one ever hides their wrist because they want to, they hide it because they have to.

Toni considers going back on his decision, but then Felix calls and tells him not to be stupid, so Toni steels himself and flies to Madrid, where he’ll meet his soulmate, whatever that might mean for the both of them.


	2. -

From the moment his plane lands in Madrid, Toni enters a high-key state of stress that has him feeling more frazzled than playing in the World Cup final.

He keeps expecting Isco to pop out of any corner and shout at him, although the words he chooses are always changing. Sometimes he shouts, “Toni Kroos! You’re my soulmate!” while other times he glares at Toni and tells him in no uncertain terms to, “Fuck off.”

It is, overall, a horrible state to live in.

The constant stream of texts from his brother doesn’t help either.

> how’s madrid??? have u eaten TAPAS yet

> i heard their beer is shit. do u want me to mail u some?

> have u met Him yet? have u smooched faces? held hands??

> HAVE U MET ROLANDO YET

Toni glares at the screen, sends off a quick “I’ve played against Ronaldo” and puts his phone in airplane mode. He’s sure his brother will find another way to communicate with him, probably use supersonic pigeons or something, but for now this will do.

It’s not as if Toni has much to report yet. Madrid is hot, immersed in the kind of sweltering heat that traps him like a layer of dense fog. All Toni has eaten so far is a _bocadillo con tortilla_ , which got his firm seal of approval, and he has yet to drink their beer, although he’s been told Mahou, Madrid’s preferred beer, is on the shit side. Toni’s presentation to the press and the public is to be held that afternoon and then tomorrow he’ll meet everyone for practice.

That’s it. That’s Toni’s entire day. Nothing exciting to report. No Isco. At all.

And it’s fine. Maybe he’s busy or he doesn’t know Toni’s there yet. It’s not like Toni expected him to be at the airport when Toni arrived or anything. _Nope_.

The best thing for Toni to do is to keep it together and forget about Isco, if only for a moment, as he enjoys himself. After all, it’s not every day one joins the biggest club in the world.

He smiles for the pictures, kicks a ball around, and does all he’s asked for the programmed amount of time. There are more people in the stands than he imagined there would be. He’s no Ronaldo, but he is a World Cup winner, and everyone seems to be acutely aware of that. When he’s done, he goes to his new home, which his agent found for him. Apparently, all the football players live in the same area, with Ronaldo being just down the street. Toni wonders if Isco is included in this group. He does not ask.

He shows up to his first day of practice thirty minutes early, but he’s still beaten by a couple of people. Ronaldo, like all the rumors said, is one of them, alongside the captains and the other new players. Sami isn’t there, so there’s no one to translate for Toni as his new teammates introduce themselves. Some speak English, like Bale and Ronaldo, but it’s clear from the few stunted sentences he gets from Ramos and Casillas that neither of them knows how to say more than five words to Toni in a language he understands.

The next few months should be fun ones, that’s for sure.

Toni worries about anyone holding a grudge against him for past victories with Bayern Munich or the national team, but his nerves are unfounded. Everyone, with no exception, greets him with a large smile and a big hug. Toni nods along to conversations he doesn’t understand and it’s Modric who has to tell him how happy they all are that he’s there. Toni tells him the pleasure is all his.

The only person who doesn’t greet him is, coincidentally, the only person Toni actually wants to greet.

Isco arrives thirty minutes late and runs into the middle of the pitch without pausing to talk to anyone. 

Toni has been with Real Madrid for less than a full day and even he knows that being late is a thing they don’t do there. As soon as he spots him, Ancelotti pulls him to the side, then so do Casillas and Ramos. Isco dismisses them all quickly, shaking his head and explaining widely with his hands. Toni tries to follow the conversation as inconspicuously as he can, but Sami catches him staring anyway, and near the end of practice he asks, “What’s up?”

Toni shrugs, playing it casual. “Nothing.”

“Really? Because you’ve been staring at Isco all practice. Have you guys talked yet?”

“No, not yet,” Toni says, shaking his head.

Sami slings an arm around Toni’s shoulders. “You should. He’s really funny. And he’s usually not thirty minutes late.”

“No?”

“No.” Sami shakes his head. “Something must have happened. He’s been acting weird lately.”

“Is it because of the…” Toni gestures towards his wrist and watches as Sami flickers his eyes and pulls away.

“I don’t know, man. He hasn’t talked about it and I haven’t asked. It’s—“

“Private. I know. I’m sorry for asking.”

“Anyway, you should go say ‘hi’. Make friends.” Sami smiles. “You know Mario will be heartbroken if you don’t become everyone’s best friend within two days.”

“Oh no, breaking Mario's heart, my worst nightmare.”

Sami laughs so hard he attracts the attention of everyone around them, making Toni’s face heat up like a hot chili pepper. Some things never change.

After practice, Toni mostly keeps to himself. He watches Isco move around the locker room, talking to the other Spanish-speakers as he goes. Toni wants to go over and say something, but he has no clue what, not to mention he doesn’t want to touch Isco while everyone else is around. If Toni is right (and he’s sure he’s right; the air in his lungs, the weight of his feet, and the beat of his heart all say _it’s him_ with unbreakable confidence) and Isco is his soulmate, then the first time they touch should be special, private.

So Toni takes his time in the shower, gives himself a scalp massage and washes every molecule of dirt and sweat off his body with surgical precision. He spends ages styling with his hair, avoiding everyone’s eyes on the eventuality that someone gives him a _what the fuck, you barely even have hair_ look. He is impossibly aware of Isco’s presence on the other side of the room, like an attachment to Toni’s limbs. Isco takes his time, too, and by the time they’ve both finished getting dressed, everyone but the two of them is gone.

Isco is still on the other side of the room. 

Toni takes a step towards him. Just a single, harmless step. Isco explodes.

“You had no right,” he says, speaking in slurred, heavily punctuated English. “You should not have come.”

Toni’s blood freezes as his eyes widen in shock. An iron weight grips his heart and starts to squeeze. “I have your name,” Toni tries to explain. “On my wrist, I have—“

“I know what you have. I _know_ why you’re here. I’m not fucking stupid, I’m not wearing this,” Isco tugs on the bracelet around his left wrist, “because I fucking feel like it. I’m wearing it in case you decide to touch me and,” Isco points a shaky finger at Toni, “I will murder you if you do.”

Toni’s heart shatters. “I wouldn’t,” he says, and it’s true. He would never touch Isco without his permission. Never.

“Yeah, you better.” Isco keeps glaring at him with pure, unfiltered anger. His whole body shakes like he can’t contain the rage inside of him and Toni’s pretty sure he’d have been punched by now if it weren’t for the fact that Isco refuses to touch him. “ _Joder, ¿por qué estás aquí? ¿Y por qué ahora y así? De entre todas las maneras que nos podríamos haber conocido esta es la peor, tío. ¿Quieres arruinar mi vida o qué?_ ”

Isco’s rapid Spanish goes over Toni like a wave of incomprehensible force. “I don’t understand,” Toni says, and he doesn’t mean just the Spanish. It’s everything else, too. Isco’s refusal to touch. The bracelet on his wrist. His anger.

This was not how the stories went and even though Toni had never dreamt of fairy tales he had hoped—

He had wanted—

Something.

Anything but this.

“ _Claro que no entiendes, porque tu no hablas Español, porque tu no debías estar aquí_ ,” Isco shouts the last words, spitting in his ire and stamping from one side of the room to the other. Toni is so very glad there is no one around to see them. “We are not soulmates. I don’t care what our wrists say. You will _not_ ruin our lives.”

“I don’t want to ruin anything.”

“Then why are you here?!” And with that last burst, Isco deflates. His shoulders drop and he sighs, bone-deep tired. He sits down on one of the wooden benches by the door. “We are football players. If anyone discovers that we have each other’s names on our wrists, our careers are over.”

“I didn’t come here to expose us. I don’t want people to know.” _Not if you don’t,_ he doesn’t add. 

“Yeah, well, that’s what will happen if we touch. That’s why I have the bracelet. Never know when we might accidentally bump into each other and the goddamn ink suddenly becomes visible. Bound to happen with us _playing_ together,” Isco sneers.

“I’m sorry,” Toni says, sitting down on a bench opposite Isco’s.

Deep down, he doesn’t believe he has anything to be sorry for, but the words seem to appease Isco, who runs a hand through his hair and says, “Look, I don’t know why you came here, but whatever it was—“ Isco doesn’t let Toni interrupt him, waving him quiet, “it doesn’t matter now. We’ll never touch, and even if we do because of some accident, nothing will ever happen between us. Got it?”

Toni stares at Isco, the words falling like bricks inside his mind. “Got it,” he says after a while. Isco nods and gets up, picking up his bag before he heads to the exit.

Right as he’s about to leave, he turns around and adds, “You know, I learned English as a kid because I figured we’d meet one day and I wanted to be able to talk to you. Toni Kroos didn’t seem like a Spanish name to me.” Isco pauses and Toni continues staring at him, unsure of what to say to that—to _any_ of this. “Then I started playing football and I continued studying English because it was practical. Important. Not because of…” _you_.

“I get it,” Toni repeats.

Isco shakes his head. “ _Tu no entiendes nada o no estarías aquí_ ,” he says before he walks away, leaving Toni on his own.

: :

The worst part, out of all the gut-wrenching parts, is that Toni can’t even appreciate Isco’s confession of having Toni’s name on his wrist.

Of course, Toni knew he had it, but before he only had a convict feeling, whereas now he knew it as a fact. 

He would have been ecstatic about this if only he didn’t feel like a steaming pile of horse shit.

Toni is twenty-four and he has never been in love, much less had his heart broken.

The feeling, he finds out, sucks.

: :

“He hates me,” is the first Toni says after his brother picks up the phone.

There is a pause and then, “What happened? Tell me everything.”

Toni hears a television being muted and his brother walking across a room and for the thousandth time in his life, he is so thankful for Felix. 

“He avoided me during practice and then at the end we both stayed behind and he started yelling at me. He was so fucking angry. Shit, Felix, what have I done?” Toni throws himself across his sofa and groans. This is terrible. This is literally the worst thing that could have happened, except maybe Isco deciding Toni’s existence posed too much of a risk and murdering him, although right now being murdered didn’t sound all that terrible. “Kill me. Hire a hitman and put me out of my misery. And don’t bother arranging a funeral for me. Just let my body rot in the River Ryck.”

There is another pause. “You know,” Felix says, smacking his lips, “I always thought that if anyone in this family had a flair for the dramatics, it was me or maybe dad. You were like, the very last on the list.”

“That was before I met my soulmate and he told me he hated me.”

“He said that? That exact word? He said he _hated_ you?”

Toni stops to think about it. “Okay, maybe that wasn’t his exact phrasing, but you should have seen him. He definitely would have punched me if doing so didn’t make the names come out.”

“That’s rough. What’s it gonna be like with the team now?”

“I think we’re gonna act like nothing happened. That’s the vibe I got from him, anyway. It’s not like there’s anything else we can do.”

“Guess not,” Felix exhales loudly. “Damn. I was so sure he would be more welcoming. I’m sorry, bro.”

Toni groans again. “Please don’t. It’s not your fault. I was the one who acted without thinking. I should have found a way to speak to him before coming here. It’s not like there are no cell phones or—“

“You did what you thought you had to do. He can’t judge you for that.”

“He can and he does.” Toni pulls in a trembling breath. He feels pathetic. He _is_ pathetic. And he’s happy that there’s no one around to watch him and that his brother can only hear the static of his voice through the connection. 

“You need to give him some space and then try to befriend him. No physical contact. Soul bonds are meant to extend way further than physical connections anyway. If you guys are really each other’s soulmates, then you’ll be naturally drawn to each other and you’ll just click, in every aspect of your lives.”

Toni frowns. “When did you become an expert on soulmates?”

His brother lets out a hearty laugh. Toni can picture him shaking his head all the way over in Germany. “Most people don’t avoid the topic of soulmates with all their might until they’re twenty years old, you know. This was on our school books.”

“I was a bad student,” Toni says, shrugging.

“You’re lucky you have such a great emotional counselor who can help you through these tough times,” Felix says, laughing again when Toni snorts in reply.

“Go fuck yourself,” Toni says, no heat in the words. “How about you? How are you doing?”

“It’s the same old for me. No soulmates on the horizon, no million dollar offers to join a Spanish giant…”

“Good things will come. You can’t give up,” Toni says, his heart aching for his little brother. Toni would fight the whole world for Felix. He would.

“Don’t worry. I’m doing good,” Felix tells him, and Toni lets the subject drop, moving swiftly to ask when Felix is coming to visit him in Madrid.

Talking to his brother is always easy. Toni is glad that hasn’t changed.

: : 

It’s hard to befriend someone who glares at you whenever you come close, refuses to be within one meter of your presence, and, generally speaking, avoids you at all costs.

Still, Toni hasn’t gotten to where he is today by giving up in the face of hardship.

He invites Isco to play FIFA and when he says no, he invites Isco to play Call of Duty, Halo, and even Fantasy Manager. He asks Isco to show him around Madrid and take him to Segovia, Toledo, and Cuenca. He asks Isco about Spanish food and what’s it like in Málaga. He is buffed back on nearly all occasions, but occasionally Isco will slip and answer one of his questions.

One time, after a long match that left them all with far too many bruises and aches, Toni asks Isco if he wants to watch the new Marvel movie with him and Isco, in an exhausted daze, says _sure_.

As soon as the word is out of his mouth, his eyes widen to ridiculous proportions and he gapes,but by then it’s too late. Toni mentally fist pumps the air and grins. “Awesome. Does tomorrow work for you?”

Isco’s reply is too quick. “No, definitely not.”

“Monday?”

“No.”

“Tuesday?”

“No—“

“Isco, I will literally name every day for the next year until you say yes, so how about you make things easy for both of us and just pick a date?”

Isco takes a step closer to Toni and lowers his voice. He reaches for Toni’s arm before he stops himself and recoils like he’d been burnt. “I don’t know what you’re playing at, but we’re not doing this.”

“I’m not playing at anything. I just want to spend some time with you. No touching. Just us hanging out for a bit. What’s so wrong about that?”

Isco frowns and bites down on his bottom lip. He looks from left to right, checking to see if anyone is watching them, but their teammates are all engrossed in their own conversations. It’s clear Isco has some obvious objections to Toni’s simple proposal, but whatever they are, he either can’t or doesn’t want to voice them.

“Fine. A movie. Tomorrow at four.”

“Cool. I’ll pick you up,” Toni says. He’s gone before Isco can complain about anything else.

: :

For obvious, brotherly reasons, Toni could never admit this out loud, but Felix had been right.

He and Isco _click_.

Despite Isco’s efforts at remaining silent for the entire duration of the movie, there’s no stopping Toni from his barrage of commentary post-movie (he’d never speak during a movie, he’s not a heathen). Eventually Isco has to join in, since it’s either that or listening to Toni talk about how much he’d love to be Iron Man for the next twenty minutes.

And that’s when Toni remembers how much he loves listening to Isco talk. He’s not superbly articulate, often tripping over his own words and butchering sentences in favor of getting his thoughts out faster, but he always speaks with a torment of passion, as if he has to dedicate himself fully to any topic that crosses his mind. His hands move widely with his words as he gets more excited and he’s stubborn, which makes it easy for Toni to disagree with him and watch him get flustered and stutter in outrage before he goes on a rant on why Batman is cooler than Iron Man.

He’s not, but normally Toni wouldn’t fight such a mild opinion if it wasn’t so much fun.

They bicker a lot and stop for dinner on their way back to Isco’s place because, according to him, “There’s only Chinese take-out and yogurt in my fridge.”

“Yogurt’s pretty nice,” Toni says. He’s not even sure why he’s arguing the idea of them dining out together. All the bickering has gotten to his brain.

“I am not eating yogurt for dinner again,” is Isco’s pissed off reply.

Toni smiles to himself as he says, “Alright, then dinner out it is.”

Watching Isco’s reaction as he realizes what he’s just agreed to is hilarious, even if it means Toni has to pull on the brakes when he nearly misses a red light.

“Jesus Christ, eyes on the road okay! I’m too young to die in a car crash.”

“Sorry, I was distracted.”

“Yeah, well, that’s no excuse for killing us.”

Fair enough, Toni thinks, and turns the car around so he can drive them to the center of Madrid. If he’s taking Isco out for dinner, they’re going to the fanciest place Toni knows, and Toni is definitely paying. 

: :

Isco doesn’t let him pay, but he does comment that next time he’ll be the one picking the restaurant, and Toni is too pleased about that to find any fault in literally anything, ever.

: :

Isco kicks Toni’s ass at FIFA and he’s smugger than God when they invented bread, but an hour later he makes a fool of himself at NBA 2K15 and Toni’s the one sipping the tea.

After all, it’s the small things in life that matter.

: :

The fundamental thing about soulmate bonds, which most scientists refuse to acknowledge, is this: there’s almost no real knowledge about them.

Oh, there’s loads of research on them, and every day a new study that promises to revolutionize the way society views soulmates comes out, but the truth is nobody knows what, exactly, are soulmates.

Rushes of endorphins, spiritual connections, mental links, and a million other terms are used to describe them, depending on which paper you read or which school of thought your prescribe to, but all the studies are either incomplete or they make a lot of biased assumptions.

To put it simply, science can’t explain it.

Personally, Toni has always been fond of the atoms theory, which says that at the beginning of the universe, his and his soulmate’s atoms were next to each other and as the universe expanded, they were separated, but their initial link meant that they are always bound to return to each other. He knows there’s probably no scientific knowledge behind it, but he likes the idea anyway. It is reassuring and more than a little magical to think that, since the dawn of time, he and his soulmate have been together, and together they would end up one day.

This theory didn’t explain a lot of things, though, like how their names ended up on each other’s wrists, or how the universe even knew what written names were. 

There are other theories about that. Entire schools of thought dedicated to studying typography, the meaning of names, and ink. Skin is a massive deal as well. Why the names are only visible to the people who have them until the soulmates meet is a huge mystery. Toni has never followed any of the research, having only discovered that the world wasn’t flat when he reached his adolescence, and by them he didn’t care for the explanations. 

His ignorance doesn’t bother him in the slightest since he knows it’s an ignorance shared by most of the world, even if a lot of people pretend to have all answers.

For example, no one can explain the mental link between soulmates. People know that it exists, that there is a _click_ , like Felix had said, between soulmates, that makes them perfect matches for each other, but nobody knows _how_ it works.

What people do know, through trial and documentation, is that the link deepens as soulmates spend more time together and that it affects just about every aspect of their lives.

Throughout history, the connection has started wars, destroyed civilizations, and built countries. It has shaped the face of the world, physically and culturally, branding the Earth like a hot iron bar. It has created the most powerful rulers to ever live, people who always knew where their partner was, who knew what they were thinking before they did, who guided each other through battle and politics. People who could, if the need arose, guide each other on a football pitch.

No one knew how it worked, but no one could deny that it was real.

Even though they told no one about their bond, the results were still there and they were, simply put, beautiful to behold.

Toni always knew where Isco was, could pass the ball to him when he was on the other side of the field without so much as a glance in his direction. They moved seamlessly, all their kicks and turns falling in sync with each other in the space of a breath. Ancelotti loved it, their fans went nuts for it and sports journalists wrote pieces about them being _the duo of the decade_.

Real Madrid won, and they won a lot, and they won like kings.

Toni could tell that Isco didn’t adore the more thoughtful articles that grazed the truth about their connection, but other than that, even he could appreciate the result of their bond.

For all Isco had complained about Toni being at Real Madrid, he wasn’t saying a word now.

: :

The first time they hang out at Isco’s invitation, it’s five months, five movies, enough Chinese takeout to feed an Italian family, and over a hundred FIFA and NBA matches into their relationship.

Also, Toni feels like shit.

January in Madrid is cold enough to turn Toni’s smaller limbs blue. It rains all throughout practice and he’s sent sprawling onto the grass more than once from dirty tackles. Toni knows his teammates aren’t doing it on purpose, but by the time practice ends he’s ready to rip off a limb out of anyone who so much as looks at him wrong. 

He’s avoiding all conversations and rubbing his hands with more anger than consideration, desperate to put some warmth back into them.

“You okay, Tones?” Gareth asks him. Toni wants to tell him he’s going to smash his face against one of the lockers if he ever calls him fucking _Tones_ again.

Instead he says, “Yeah, just tired,” because he wasn’t raised in a barn, not to mention threatening someone with violent death for using a stupid nickname would raise a few eyebrows.

“All- _right_ , if you say so,” Gareth says, covering his words with a thick layer of sarcasm.

Toni flashes him the most obnoxious smile he can muster and pointedly refuses to reply. He doesn’t have to explain himself to anyone, much less Gareth freaking Bale, and especially not when the weather is below freezing and Toni wants to _die_.

Whoever said Spain was always warm is a filthy, disgusting liar that should be burnt at the stake.

Not that Toni’s overreacting or anything.

He stays in the shower until his skin is lobster red and he can breathe again, these deep, immersing breaths that drag him back to reality. By the time Toni returns to the locker room, there are only a few people left, including his soulmate.

It’s a weird thought. Like a dream, it feels tangible, as if he’d find something solid if he were to reach out, but the truth is whenever he tries—whenever he reaches for Isco—the other man pulls away, the dream melts, everything vanishes, and Toni realizes he’s still alone, as he’s always been.

“Hey,” Isco says when he sees him.

Toni grunts in reply and starts getting dressed, not bothering to look at Isco.

“You okay?” Isco asks, taking a step towards him at around the time Toni makes the mistake of looking up and seeing Isco look at him like he’s worried, like he fucking gives a damn about Toni, like for the past five months he hasn’t told Toni he doesn’t want him at every single fucking opportunity he has.

Toni _snaps_.

“Why does everyone keep asking if I’m okay? Do I not look okay to you?”

“Huh— not really? You look like you’re two seconds away from killing someone, possibly yourself.”

Toni scoffs. “Don’t worry yourself about it, it’s not like I’m your problem.”

Isco doesn’t reply, leaving them in a limbo of awkward silence and anxiety. Toni continues getting dressed, throwing on piece of clothing after piece of clothing since he needs as many layers as possible if he wants to reach his car without getting frostbite. 

Winter _sucks_.

“Do you want to come over to my place?” Isco asks. “We’ll play FIFA and order a pizza. I promise not to humiliate you too much this time.”

Despite its simplicity, bluntness, and downright rudeness, it is the kindest thing Isco has ever said to him. All Toni wants to do is tell him to _fuck off_ , but that isn’t him talking, it’s his exhaustion. Nevertheless, Toni is in no mood for video games of any kind, even if it means spending time with Isco.

“I think I’m too tired for FIFA tonight,” he says.

“Well, we can always do just the pizza bit,” Isco prompts. His voice is a few notches quieter than usual.

Toni stares at him for a second that stretches and stretches until it pops like a balloon. “Sure,” he says. “Just don’t order any anchovies like last time. Those are disgusting.”

“Those are _delicious_ but fine, you can pick the toppings this time,” Isco says, topping his earlier statement and setting a new record for the kindest thing he’s ever said to Toni.

“Thank you,” Toni replies. The honesty in his voice seems to surprise Isco, who gives him a curt nod in response before he walks to his locker and grabs his bag.

Isco follows Toni into the parking lot and gets into Toni’s car without so much as a glance towards his own. He doesn’t even make a comment about Toni’s reckless driving or the Olly Murs playing over the speakers, which is a first.

Today, it seems, is full of firsts.

“You don’t have to be kind to me just because you feel sorry for me or whatever it is you’re feeling.”

“I don’t feel sorry for you. Well, okay, I do, because you look like shit—“ Toni snorts. What an understatement. “—but I’m not asking you over for pizza because I pity you, for god’s sake.”

“Then why are you inviting me over for pizza?” Toni asks. He keeps his eyes on the road. It’s easier than looking at Isco.

There are words he wants to hear. Words he _longs_ to hear. Words—

“Because I’m your friend and because— because you’re my soulmate and I don’t like seeing you so miserable.”

_Oh_ , Toni thinks.

“Oh,” he says out loud.

Yes, those are the words he wanted to hear.

“I thought you didn’t want us to be soulmates,” he replies.

“It’s not about what I want though, is it? It is what it is. You don’t get to pick your soulmate.”

The comment stings, but it doesn’t extinguish the kindle of hope that Isco’s previous statement lightened. “Does that mean—“ he doesn’t finish his sentence. He’s not even sure what he wants to ask. Touch, is what he craves for, and a request for it is on the tip of his tongue, but he knows that will always be too much. 

Luckily, Isco answers him anyway. “It means I care, Toni.” He takes a deep breath, then repeats his words as if to cement them. “It means I care.”

It isn’t what Toni wants, but it’s more than he could have hoped for.


	3. i and love and you

If Toni thought Isco inviting him for takeaway pizza was a meaningless stone in the stream of life, he was wrong.

It was a gate and once it was open, the possibility of it ever closing again disappeared. 

After eating their own weight in pizza and watching Godfather I, II and III, Isco starts to invite him to do things together more often. Sometimes Dani, Nacho or Illarra will be there, which means Toni is forced to use his limited Spanish to talk to them. He doesn’t mind, as it helps him develops his language skills, as well as strengthen his bond with his teammates and establish his place on the team. In turn, this means strengthening his bond to Isco. 

And _this_ can’t get much stronger. 

They hang out in every speck of free time they have. Isco stays up to watch television with Toni, listens to his music, and eats Toni’s horrible attempts at cooking with only a slight grimace. Over time, he has become fond of basketball, although he draws the line at darts, which Toni can’t blame him for. In return, Toni watches a lot of Spanish TV and pretends to understand what the hell is going on. One is like Game of Thrones but realistic and about Spain. The other is some kind of extreme version of Big Brother. Toni isn’t sure. He should really do something about his Spanish, like ask Isco for help, since there’s no way he’s giving up on any of their time together for Spanish lessons with some random teacher.

If they aren’t watching television, they are playing golf or going for car rides together. Isco finally shows him Segovia, Toledo, and Cuenca, and while he’s at it he also shows him El Escorial, Alcalá de Henares, and Buitrago del Lozoya. When they have more than a day off, they venture on longer road trips, to Granada and Salamanca.

They spend a lot of time together and through that, they learn.

Toni becomes familiar with Isco in all phases of the day. In the early morning, he is always groggy. He eats with his eyes closed, takes personal offense to the presence of noise or bright lights and isn’t capable of holding the simplest of conversations until he’s had his coffee. His hair never cooperates, pointing in all directions and looking beyond adorable. 

After coffee, Isco is brighter and louder. He makes a lot of jokes and always makes sure Toni laughs at them. He likes to get lunch in the middle of the afternoon, but having Toni around forces them both to compromise and eat around two. Isco can’t cook anything besides toast, which is fine because Toni only figured out rice three months ago.

By nighttime, Isco is still his usual, loud self, although he’s not the bundle of energy he was earlier. He puts more space between his words, and spends a lot of time watching Toni out the corner of his eye when he thinks Toni isn’t looking.

Toni’s always looking, but that’s a secret Isco doesn’t need to know.

The best Isco, though, is the one Toni sees in the early hours of the evening when it’s just the two of them and the rest of the world is asleep. That Isco is slow and soft and unguarded. He talks freely about his mother, his father, and his childhood in Málaga. About growing up with a boy’s name on his wrist.

“I told my mom when I was six, I think? She told me it was okay, that she loved me anyway, but to wait until I was older until I told the old man. She figured hearing his six-year-old’s soulmate was a guy was too much for him to handle. Then I started playing football and...”

“You never told him?” Toni asks. They’re in the car on their way to the Basque Country, driving in the darkness since they’d left after dinner in hopes of getting there just before midnight. Isco says their food is delicious and the weather will be a delicious twenty-one celsius tomorrow, which makes this the perfect time to visit.

It’s April and they have known each other for over eight months. 

“Nah. Just couldn’t do it. I could never find a right moment and after a while it felt like I’d missed my mark. He was _so_ happy when I joined Málaga’s first team. It was like I’d given him the world. And the thing is, I don’t think he’d hate me or anything if I told him. He’s not that type of guy. But he’d be disappointed and he’d worry like, horribly, that I’m going to die alone. My mom certainly does. So then it just became easier not to say anything.”

Toni wouldn’t normally ask the next question, but the darkness makes him brave. In that moment, only the two of them exist. The roads are empty, the stars bright and bold and there is nowhere in the world Toni would rather be.

“Do you regret it?”

Isco sniffs. He’s the one driving this time. He said he didn’t trust Toni’s night-driving skills. “I regret a lot of things,” he says after a minute of consideration. 

Toni takes that as a simple _yes_.

“And what about you?” Isco asks. “How did you tell your family?”

And that’s how Toni tells him about the time he’s four and makes the error of telling both his parents at once that the name on his wrist is a beautiful, articulate _Francisco_. He tells him about his parents’ reaction; the way they hadn’t been angry, just sad.

At the end, Isco says, “I’m sorry,” and Toni shakes his head.

“Don’t be. I don’t think the name defines us as much as people say. Even if I didn’t have it, I’d still be who I am. I’d still be—“ Toni hesitated. He’d never admitted this to Isco, although he’d never hinted in the opposite way either and put the clues together, the other man could surely reach this conclusion by himself. Still, honesty hour was honesty hour— “gay.”

Isco’s surprise has him flipping his head to look at Toni before he looks at the road again. “Yes,” he says after a few seconds. “I get that.”

They don’t talk for the rest of the drive, but it’s not uncomfortable. There’s music playing over the radio and Toni is happy to let his mind drift in and out of thought. 

He loves it when Isco confesses something about himself to him. He stores all the information away in a neat compartment of his mind; an Isco catalog, so to say. All of it means something to him. They’re steps forward. Where they lead, Toni doesn’t know. He knows where _he_ would like them to lead, though.

There is no doubt about it. If before he had a crush on him, now he’s in love. He can’t deny it. He wouldn’t, not to himself at least. All of his life, Toni has denied himself this fundamental part of his own being, but he won’t do it for any longer. He might not ever voice it out loud to anyone but his brother, but this is the truth: he is in love with his soulmate, _Francisco Román Alarcón Suárez_ , and nothing anyone does will ever change that.

They reach their hotel earlier than planned thanks to Isco’s speeding. Toni gets them separate rooms right next to each other while Isco waits in the car and then they make plans to go out together the morning. 

At least this is simple.

: :

Toni doesn’t fly back to Germany in the summer since he doesn’t want to be away from his soulmate. He doesn’t tell this to anyone, although he’s sure Felix can guess and Isco probably realizes it as well.

Instead, he takes up Isco on his invitation to fly out to Málaga and spend a full week lounging in the sun and doing nothing. He feels a little bad about not spending his free time with his family, but then Felix sends him a bunch of inappropriate emojis and Toni decides family time can go fuck itself.

It’s not like there’s a real choice between spending time on a warm, sunny beach with a shirtless Isco or spending vacation in Toni’s parent’s tiny home—they refuse to move into the bigger one Toni bought them because the new one doesn’t have character, as if a goddamn collection of walls and floors could have _character_ —in balmy, only sometimes sunny Germany.

And sure, Toni sees Isco shirtless all the time in the locker room, but here it’s just the two of them. Although they’re quite close nowadays, Isco still keeps their relationship as casual as possible when there are other people around. It’s as if he’s afraid someone is going to sense they’re soulmates if they stand too close to each other. Toni hasn’t found a non-awkward way to bring up the subject yet and it’s possible he never will since Isco makes up for the time he’s distant by being extra friendly when it’s just the two of them and, well, Toni can’t say _no_ to that.

Málaga is perfect anyway. Isco rents them a villa with a private beach and a barbecue grill because, as it turns out, Toni is not the only one not dying to spend their vacation time with his family. The fact that Isco chooses to spend that time with Toni is difficult to ignore, but Toni tries his best. A full year after they’ve met, he and Isco are still nothing but friends, and the only thing dreaming about other scenarios does is give Toni blue balls.

It’s easier to enjoy himself if he doesn’t think about the delicate balance between them and focuses on accomplishing what they planned: lounging in the sun and doing nothing.

Isco spends a lot of time napping while Toni prefers to delve into the book collection he brought with him. Between these moments of respite, they talk about everything and nothing. Often, Isco tries to make Toni laugh. He loves doing it and he’s good at it, too. So Toni laughs and Isco jokes and it’s all easy, the way the stories say it should be. Toni feels like he’s slipping in and out of a dream with every breath.

Everything goes exactly as it should until the third day of their vacation, when Toni slips.

He’s right by the pool, yet he falls at such an angle that his head will hit the flagstone before it hits the water. Toni feels the air cool down and liquefy around him, slowing time. His feet squid on a shallow puddle of water that his eyes at missed. His balance his thrown off. His arms fling without direction. His head aims down, down, _down_ , until a strong pair of hands grip him by his chest and pull him back to verticality.

Toni doesn’t have to question the identity of his savior because there is no one there but Isco.

“Are you okay?” his friend asks.

Toni takes a lumbering breath after lumbering breath. There’s not enough oxygen in the world to appease his lungs. “Yes,” he says, all the while staring at Isco’s hands, still locked around the naked skin of Toni’s hips. He had been seconds away from jumping into the pool. There are no clothes on him save for his swimming shorts.

Isco notices what Toni’s staring at with a minute delay. Then he sucks in a breath and, before Toni can react, pulls up Toni’s right wrist. 

There are words there, words that up until now, only Toni could read. From Isco’s gasp, Toni calculates that is no longer the case.

“Shit,” Isco whispers, staring at his name. He’s still holding on to Toni’s wrist. Toni wonders when will he let go, take a step back, repulsed, and tell Toni to _fuck off_. It’s what he would have done a year ago. “That’s my name,” he says instead.

“Yeah,” Toni replies, dumbly. He doesn’t know what he feels or what he’s thinking. There’s a strange heat coursing through his body, the rush of hormones everyone talks about. He thought it would make his judgment hazy, but in reality it intensifies everything, making it brighter and sharper. “Can I look at yours?”

There is no point in specifying what he means. Isco knows immediately. He hesitates for only a second before he snaps off the thin leather bracelet and shows his wrist to Toni. There, Toni sees two words in neat script, the kind that he could only pull off when he gave writing his full attention.

_Toni Kroos_.

A hand reaches through Toni’s ribcage and rips out his breath.

He never thought it would make a difference, to know his name was on Isco’s wrist and to actually _see_ it, but it does. It definitely does.

“Isco,” he says, still out of breath, desperately trying to contain the swirl of thoughts and emotions within him and desperately failing. They have let go of each other soon or Toni will do something stupid like kiss Isco and never, ever let go.

“If I keep wearing my bracelet and you start wearing one we could do this. People would be suspicious, but there would be no way for them to know. Please, I can’t tell everyone, not yet, but I want— I want you.”

A million thoughts cross Toni’s mind, crashing into one another and giving him a brain meltdown. In the win, his befuddlement wins the fight for control over his tongue, and the words he gets out are, “You’ve been thinking about this?”

“It’s literally all I’ve thought about for the past year,” Isco snorts.

Toni’s brain short-circuits again.

“Are you sure?” he asks. Why he’s still talking is a mystery.

In response, Isco kisses him.

Well, ‘lunges at him’ is also an appropriate description of what he does. He makes Toni stumble and take two steps back before Isco catches him again and pulls him close, so that there’s no vacant space between their half-naked bodies.

It takes a while for Toni to remember he’s supposed to kiss back. He hasn’t done this in a while and this is Isco. _Isco_. Toni still can’t believe it. He half wants to run inside and call Felix to tell him the news, half wants to run away with Isco and live hermit lives together. He settles for following Isco’s rhythm instead.

Isco kisses the same way he lives. There are sparks, tumbles of energy and excitement. He adds tongue the second he feels Toni’s lips part, then changes his mind and decides to bite down on Toni’s bottom lip, his chin, his jaw. He is smaller than Toni and he uses it to his full advantage. For his part, Toni has no complaints. He finds it far more rewarding to let his hands roam where his eyes have been many times before. He runs the tip of his fingers over Isco’s tattoos, squeezing his biceps when Isco suddenly bites down on his neck and a light explodes beneath Toni’s eyes.

“We should go inside,” Toni suggests. His voice is not his own. It is low and gravelly, already out of breath. Sergio’s laughter echoes inside Toni’s hear, followed by him saying Toni sounds _well-fucked_.

Isco eyes him for a moment, examining Toni’s expression with an intensity that makes Toni squirm, although he doesn’t even think to get away. “Okay,” he says. He kisses Toni again, lingering for a second with their mouths pressed together, their breaths heating the air.

The sun begins to heat up Toni’s back, trying to murder Toni’s pale complexion. So far it’s done a fairly good job at it. It’s a true accomplishment, considering how much of a bitch it’s been to put sunscreen on his own back. Right now, however, Toni doesn’t have any sunscreen and he doesn’t want to remember the first time he and Isco have sex as that time he got a massive, soul-destroying sun burn.

They walk inside hand in hand, with both of them reluctant to let go of the other. Toni doesn’t even want to consider that idea. They spent so long avoiding each other, it is a miracle to have this now. This intoxicating thought distracts Toni from the bigger goal. Before he knows it, he’s reeling Isco back again and pressing him against one of the kitchen walls. This time, he’s the one lavishing bites and kisses, loving the texture of Isco’s beard against his skin. It will leave marks, but it’s not like Toni gives a fuck. He is drunk on his own happiness; drunk on Isco. 

Isco’s fingers press onto Toni’s bare back, his nails leaving scratch marks as Isco tries to scramble up the wall to get some leverage on Toni, who can easily keep him in place with two heavy hands on his shoulders. The height difference means Isco has to be on his toes to kiss him and even so his throat is still at an odd angle. That doesn’t stop him, of course, and he licks the inside of Toni’s mouth until they both run out of air.

The sight of Isco pressed against a wall, throat bared and nearly naked, tanned all over from the Spanish sun, is one Toni will have a hard time forgetting.

In a split-second decision, Toni places both of his hands on the swell of Isco’s ass and pulls him up, so that he’s being kept above ground by Toni’s arms and the pressure of the wall behind his back.

“Fuck, you’re gonna be the death of me,” Isco groans, not sounding the least bit discouraged by this. Toni recaptures his lips and uses the little space he has to grind their hips together. Isco moans, his voice ringing loud and clear in their empty kitchen, and grabs Toni by the hair, trying to pull him closer. “I was so stupid. We should have done this months ago. We should have just gone for it. God, I’m sorry, Toni—“

“It’s fine,” Toni rushes in to say. “I don’t regret it. At least we know we work well together without the sex.”

Toni smiles at Isco, who smiles back after a while. “And now we _have_ the sex.” Isco’s fingers run all over Toni’s hair. “And not that I mind the position we’re in, but unless you’ve got superhuman strength I can think of a few more long-lasting ones.”

It was good while it lasted. With a pretend sigh, Isco lowers Isco onto the ground and then he kisses him again because he’s not going to grow tired of doing that anytime soon.

Isco grabs him by the hips and starts walking them backwards while he returns Toni’s kiss.

With his back to the rest of the villa, Toni has no idea where they’re going, but he trusts Isco not to run them against anything breakable.

In hindsight, he’s pretty sure sixty percent of his confidence came from the cocktail of hormones and emotions running through him because of their bond, and the other forty percent came from having Isco’s tongue in his mouth.

They run into at least two picture frames, knock over Isco’s phone, which quickly gets shoved underneath the sofa, and break a Chinese vase that had been chilling by the corner.

“What the fuck is that even doing there?” Isco asks, glaring at the broken pieces of porcelain.

“We’ll pay for it later,” Toni promises as he pulls Isco back again.

His inability to let go of his soulmate will be a problem later if they don’t do something about it. They can’t act like this while they’re on the pitch. It would ruin their game, as well as immediately clue in everyone on their situation.

Thankfully, that’s a problem for a later date.

After a couple more bumps into walls and ornamental furniture, they make it to one of their bedrooms. Toni doesn’t even bother trying to figure out if it’s his or Isco’s, too distracted by the hands shoving him until he’s lying down and the weight of Isco’s body after he climbs on top of him.

“Alright?” Isco asks.

“Yes, as long as you are,” Toni replies.

Isco doesn’t reply. He has his two legs on either side of Toni and his arms lie limp by his side. Toni watches Isco’s hands, the way they curl and stretch, Isco’s fingers beating an empty rhythm against his legs. The silence that fills the room is not uncomfortable, but Toni can feel it as if it’s a physical force pressing against his skin.

Seconds stretch, until Isco opens his mouth and says, “I want you to fuck me.”

Toni’s world explodes in a show of fireworks and melts into oblivion. “Are you— I mean, I’ve never, not with a guy,” his words fail him, sticking and stumbling together in a barely discernible pattern.

“I’ve done it before,” Isco tells him, his voice purposely detached.

Before he can stop it, a gasp comes out of Toni’s mouth. He doesn’t mean it. He knows he’s not being fair on Isco. Having a soulmate doesn’t mean you’ll wait until you meet them to lose your virginity. Loads of people have other partners. Toni’s dated people, too, which means he’s being a hypocrite as well as presumptuous.

“Well,” Toni says and doesn’t add anything else since his brain refuses to cooperate. 

“I didn’t mean it like that.” Isco scowls. “I mean I’ve done it to myself. I’ve bought… stuff. I wanted to see what it would feel like. So I know what to do.”

The image of Isco fucking himself with a dildo is nearly enough to make Toni come in his pants.

“Okay,” Toni says, rolling the word on his tongue with extra care.

Isco looks up, glancing around the room. “You don’t happen to have any lube and condoms on you, do you?”

“I’m clean,” Toni says. “I don’t have anything, though.”

Isco scowls again. “Fuck it, we can use soap,” he says.

Toni, who has yet to regain full function of his brain, can do little more than nod and instantly regret the loss of contact when Isco lifts off him and walks into the bathroom. He uses the time apart to regulate his breathing, which is pointless because by the time he comes back Isco has ditched his shorts and Toni’s pretty sure if he were older and fatter his heart would give up on him then and there.

Isco climbs on top of him again, using his hands to balance himself this time. He seems completely unabashed by his nudity, but Toni can see the red tint on the high points of his cheeks, can feel the ever so slight tremor of Isco’s hands. He sits up on the bed, wraps a hand around the back of Isco’s neck and pulls him in for a thorough kiss.

This time, he’s the one who asks, “Alright?”

“Never better,” Isco says, grinning at him. They kiss again—Toni’s already come to the solid conclusion that he’s never going to grow tired of kissing Isco—and then Isco pushes him down onto the bed again. “You need to get rid of these,” he says, picking up the waistband of Toni’s swimming shorts and tugging on it.

“Not a problem,” Toni replies, although he doesn’t account for the fact that Isco is as reluctant to cut the physical contact between them as he is, which means that he doesn’t move an inch when Toni attempts to pull out his shorts. Stripping ends up requiring a lot of wiggling, making Isco laugh in his face, but Toni can’t bring himself to care. He loves hearing Isco’s laugh, inside and outside of the bedroom. Not to mention, the first thing Isco does once Toni’s shorts are on the ground is grab Toni’s dick and give it a few experimental strokes.

Toni moans, so much louder than he’s usually like, and throws his head back before he lifts it again. He wants to watch.

After blowing Toni’s world—not yet literally—Isco inches forward until he can line up their dicks and stroke both of them together. Toni figures he should get involved at some point, but there’s no cohesion in his thoughts. One second he’s moving forward to help and the next he’s admiring the look of pure concentration on Isco’s face as he gives them a handjob.

Toni’s breath shortens as he gets closer to the edge. He’s not going to last long if they keep this up, and no one in their right mind can judge him.

“I thought you wanted me to fuck you?” he asks. He sounds like he’s complaining, which is the last thing he’d ever do. He just wants to make sure they’re both still on the same page. 

Isco looks up at Toni’s face. He grins. “Can’t go for two rounds, old man?”

“I can, but we’d need to wait afterwards and I—“ Toni grabs Isco’s dick and starts stroking without hesitation, relinquishing on the loud hitch of Isco’s voice —“would rather not wait. Of course, I’ll do anything you want. So.”

The smug grin that was on Isco’s face is gone. “Yeah, yeah, you’re right,” Isco breathes out. He grabs the soap bottle that had been discarded on the bed sheets and looks it over. “You know what to do?”

“I’m a quick learner,” Toni replies. He has no idea where his confidence is coming from. Isco, probably.

Isco smiles at that and pumps out a load of soap. He spreads it all over the fingers of Toni’s right hand, taking his time in making sure there’s not a millimeter of uncoated skin, and then uses his legs to lift himself up, giving Toni space to reach behind him and press in a finger.

“I can take more than that,” is Isco’s instant reply even though his whole body has tensed like an iron bar.

Toni rolls his eyes at him. “Shut up,” he mutters. He’s moving without a rush, going back and forwards between pressing in and circling the rim. Isco makes an impatient noise and attempts to press down onto Toni’s hand, making Toni frown. “Stop it.”

“Or you’ll do what?” Isco asks, teasing him. He opens his legs further, rolling his head. He has his eyes closed like he’s internalizing all the sensations, but when Toni pushes in a second finger they fly open.

Toni scissors him, his eyes never leaving Isco’s face. He watches Isco bite down on his bottom lip, his cheeks steadily growing pinker until the color leaks onto his neck and shoulders. He admires Isco’s chest, the way it moves with big, gulping movements, and his body, how it still tenses and forcibly relaxes every so often.

“I’m ready,” Isco says after Toni’s added a third finger.

“Good for you,” Toni replies and keeps fingering him.

“Toni, come on,” Isco whines. He places his hands on Toni’s chest, pulling his body taut for a moment before he loosens again. His thighs must be beginning to strain from being locked in the same position. Toni strokes one of them with his free hand, willing the sculpted muscle to unwind.

“Alright,” Toni says, his three fingers moving freely inside Isco. “Alright.”

He uses his hand to position himself better and then Isco is lowering himself on Toni’s dick, not stopping until he’s taken Toni to the hilt. Toni feels as if every nerve in his body has been lit on fire.His hands grip Isco’s hips hard enough that they might draw marks. He needs to control himself or he’s going to come way too quickly.

“You okay?” he asks Isco, who grunts.

“Gimme a second,” he says. He takes a few deep breaths and rolls his head on his neck, straightening his back when he’s done.

Then Isco opens his eyes, lifts himself up—those thighs, Toni has a new found love for those damn thighs—and pushes down, fucking himself on Toni’s dick.

“ _Jesus Christ_ ,” Toni cusses.

“Nope,” Isco replies, his smug grin back in place, although now there’s something heavy mixed with it. “Just me.”

Despite the fact that he wants nothing more than just lie there and watch Isco, Toni is not going to be That Guy, so he slips his hands underneath the curve of Isco’s ass to help him move. Isco rewards him with a smile that quickly dissolves into a loud, shameful moan when Toni changes the angle of his thrusts and rubs against his prostate.

“Fuck me,” Isco whispers. His voice is graver than usual, like a deep slur, and his breathing is growing shallow.

Toni pulls him in for a kiss. “Kind of already am, babe,” he says, then he does the smart thing and takes Isco’s dick in the hand that’s still covered in soap, rendering Isco speechless.

It doesn’t take long for both of them to come, Isco all over Toni’s chest and Toni inside Isco. The sound of their breathing fills the air, as well as Isco saying, “You’re a lot fucking bigger than the stuff I’ve used.”

Toni hesitates. “Sorry?” he half asks, half says.

“I’m not complaining,” Isco snorts.

His face is mashed against the bed sheets by Toni’s side. He seems to be in no rush to get up and clean himself. Toni isn’t either, but he’s not going to let them fall asleep with come all over them. With a groan, he lifts himself from the bed. He doesn’t resist looking at Isco before he moves, admiring the lines and curves of his naked body, the way he’s so comfortable lying there in—Toni takes a look around—Toni’s room.

“Take a picture, it will last longer,” Isco says. His face is still mashed against the sheets, so Toni has to spend a second trying to figure out what means.

“Maybe later,” Toni promises. He gets a warm washcloth from the bathroom, cleaning himself there before he moves back to the bedroom. Isco, predictably, is already half-asleep, so all he does is spread his legs and let Toni do all the work, which, okay. Maybe Toni can go for a quick round two after all.

Just as Toni thinks this, Isco turns around and flashes him a sleepy grin, one of his eyes still closed as he tries to blink them awake. “Hey,” he says, happiness flooding his voice. Or maybe that’s just their soulmate bond talking. 

The connection with your soulmate can’t impede free will. That’s one of the major facts about soulmates that gets drilled into everyone’s heads throughout their school years. You’re still you even when you’re with them and there are a million little contact points between the two of you and they’re smiling at you like you’re the sun. And yet, Toni doesn’t feel like himself. He feels like he’s someone bigger and better and brighter. He feels like he’s floating, in and out of a dream, but still connected to the roots of reality.

He can’t explain it. Frankly, there’s no explaining it. There’s just Isco, smiling at him.

And it’s not as if the world has disappeared, everything is still there; their careers, their lives, their futures. Those are all still there. Only now, Toni knows, he won’t be going through any of it alone.

“I’m not going to let you leave,” Toni says. He doesn’t like his own words, they sound more like an order than a request and that is not who he is. 

Isco gets it, though. Of course he does. “Nowhere else I’d rather be.”

“And later—“

“Later we’ll both wear bracelets, and you’ll move into my house—it has the bigger backyard, so you can’t fight me on this—and sometime years from now, when we’ve both retired, we’ll tell everyone.”

Toni would happily accept much, much less. Hell, he was already happy with what they had. But he certainly won’t say no to a lifetime with Isco by his side. He doesn’t care if the world knows or not. That hasn’t been on his mind for a long time now.

“That sounds perfect,” he admits.

Isco smiles at him. Forget Toni’s earlier thought. If anyone is the sun, it’s Isco, not him.

“Fuck it, you know?” asks Isco. “We’re soulmates. That has to mean something, doesn’t it?”

Toni laces their fingers together, smiling at Isco, whose naked body is mere centimeters away from him.

“Yes, it does.”


End file.
